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Preference and Consensus Modeling in Group Decision Making under Complex...
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Preference and Consensus Modeling in Group Decision Making under Complex Contexts

A special issue of Systems (ISSN 2079-8954).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2023) | Viewed by 13321

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Zhen Zhang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Economics and Management, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China
Interests: group decision making; linguistic decision making; fuzzy set; multi-criteria decision making
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Jian Wu

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Economics and Management, Shanghai Maritime University, Shanghai, China
Interests: decision sciences; shipping assessment; big data analysis
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Hengjie Zhang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Business School of Hohai University, Hohai University, Nanjing, China
Interests: group decision making; consensus process; FMEA
Dr. Wenyu Yu

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, Dongbei University of Finance and Economics, Dalian, China
Interests: linguistic decision; consensus process

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Group decision making is a process in which at least two experts work together to achieve a solution to a predefined decision-making problem. With the increasing use of different information technologies, such as IoT, big data, cloud computing and social networks, group decision making problems faced by enterprises have become increasingly complex due to the complexity of cyber–physical systems. In such contexts, more individuals will participate in the decision-making process, and in real-world decision-making problems, experts sometimes provide preference information, such as multi-granular linguistic terms, hesitant fuzzy linguistic information and distributed linguistic information. On the other hand, experts can leverage social network tools for group decision-making problems to promote the exchange of information in a consensus-reaching process. In recent years, scholars have paid close attention to preference and consensus modeling for group decision making in complex contexts.
This Special Issue aims to publish rigorous research related to methodologies and real-world applications of preference and consensus modeling in group decision making in complex contexts.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

  • Complex linguistic preference modeling;
  • Information fusion in group decision making;
  • Consensus reaching in group decision making;
  • Behavior management in consensus modeling;
  • Social network group decision making;
  • Large-scale group decision making;
  • Preference learning in group decision making;
  • Opinion dynamics in group decision making;
  • Group decision support systems and software;
  • Real-world applications of preference and consensus modeling in different fields, such as healthcare, finance, transportation and digital transformation.

Dr. Zhen Zhang
Prof. Dr. Jian Wu
Dr. Hengjie Zhang
Dr. Wenyu Yu
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Systems is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • group decision making
  • linguistic decision making
  • consensus-reaching process
  • preference modeling

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Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

32 pages, 6788 KiB  
Article
Group Decision-Making Model Based on 2-Tuple Fuzzy Linguistic Model and AHP Applied to Measuring Digital Maturity Level of Organizations
by Gabriel Marín Díaz and José Luis Galdón Salvador
Systems 2023, 11(7), 341; https://doi.org/10.3390/systems11070341 - 3 Jul 2023
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2139
Abstract
In the digital era, companies have experienced a progressive change in their business models, which has led them to develop greater agility to adapt to changing environments, and the necessity to properly manage the group decision making in these companies is patent. This [...] Read more.
In the digital era, companies have experienced a progressive change in their business models, which has led them to develop greater agility to adapt to changing environments, and the necessity to properly manage the group decision making in these companies is patent. This paper shows how fuzzy models are utilized in group decision making. In this context, one of the most important group decisions to be adopted is how to manage the digital transformation of the company, drawing up the best possible roadmap. To achieve this goal, this paper proposes a new methodology improvement of group decision making based on a fuzzy 2-tuple linguistic model and the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method. The suggested methodology proposes the calculation of the digital maturity level (DML) of companies based on five of the most cited and agreed upon criteria in the existing literature. The methodology proposed in this paper was tested and validated for the business case of Spanish SMEs through three different clusters to derive global recommendations tailored to each specific cluster and company segments, using a sample of 1428 companies. The main fundings reveal that the digital maturity level directly impacts on the size of the company and its digital mindset in the sense of driving change management processes. As future works, authors recommend extending the model to any industry using the proposed methodology and evaluate disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) in supporting the digital transformation of SMEs. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Preference and Consensus Modeling in Group Decision Making under Complex Contexts)
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22 pages, 2201 KiB  
Article
An Integrated Fuzzy Structured Methodology for Performance Evaluation of High Schools in a Group Decision-Making Problem
by Pengfei Li, Seyyed Ahmad Edalatpanah, Ali Sorourkhah, Saziye Yaman and Nasreen Kausar
Systems 2023, 11(3), 159; https://doi.org/10.3390/systems11030159 - 20 Mar 2023
Cited by 13 | Viewed by 2106
Abstract
Evaluating and ranking schools are noteworthy for parents of students and upstream institutions (in Iran, the Ministry of Education). In this process, quantitative criteria, including educational activities, human resources, space and equipment, and administrative-financial indicators, are commonly investigated. This process is carried out [...] Read more.
Evaluating and ranking schools are noteworthy for parents of students and upstream institutions (in Iran, the Ministry of Education). In this process, quantitative criteria, including educational activities, human resources, space and equipment, and administrative-financial indicators, are commonly investigated. This process is carried out only by the upstream institutions and the view of the system from the perspective of another stakeholder, namely, the students’ parents, are ignored and qualitative-judgmental indicators do not involve the school evaluation results. Consequently, in this study, we used the opinions of five parents of students and five experienced school administrators to capture the perspectives of both key system stakeholders. In addition, to perform a more comprehensive analysis, we added three qualitative criteria that are less noticed within the problem (social environment, health, and students), along with their sub-criteria to the criteria obtained from the research background. We eliminated the less influential sub-criteria using the Delphi technique and continued the study with 10 criteria and 53 sub-criteria. Then, using two widely used methods in this field, AHP and TOPSIS, we determined the weight of the sub-criteria and the ranking based on the experts’ views. In addition, to deal with the ambiguity in experts’ judgments, we transformed the crisp data into fuzzy data. We applied the proposed methodology to rank 15 schools in Tehran, Iran. The results showed that the proposed quantitative criteria significantly impact the schools ranking. In addition, according to the sensitivity analysis results, it was found that ignoring the views of the system from another stakeholder can distort the results. Finally, directions for future research were suggested based on current research limitations. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Preference and Consensus Modeling in Group Decision Making under Complex Contexts)
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19 pages, 1387 KiB  
Article
Exploring the Key Factors of Old Neighborhood Environment Affecting Physical and Mental Health of the Elderly in Skipped-Generation Household Using an RST-DEMATEL Model
by Yonglin Zhu, Bo-Wei Zhu, Yingnan Te, Nurwati Binti Badarulzaman and Lei Xiong
Systems 2023, 11(2), 104; https://doi.org/10.3390/systems11020104 - 14 Feb 2023
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2699
Abstract
Most elderly people choose to age in place, making neighborhood environments essential factors affecting their health status. The policies, economic status, and housing conditions of old neighborhoods have led many elderly people to live in skipped-generation households (SGHs), where they have gradually weakened [...] Read more.
Most elderly people choose to age in place, making neighborhood environments essential factors affecting their health status. The policies, economic status, and housing conditions of old neighborhoods have led many elderly people to live in skipped-generation households (SGHs), where they have gradually weakened physical functions and are responsible for raising grandchildren; this puts their health in a more fragile state than that of the average elderly person. Practical experience has shown that when faced with complex environmental renovation problems in old communities, many cases often adopt a one-step treatment strategy; however, many scholars have questioned the sustainability of such unsystematically evaluated renovation projects. Therefore, it is often valuable to explore the root causes of these old neighborhood problems and conduct targeted transformations and upgrades according to the interactive relationship between various influencing factors. This study attempted to establish a novel evaluation system to benefit the health of elderly families in old neighborhoods and develop an understanding of the impact relationship among the indicators, while avoiding any form of waste when collecting responses in regard to the future transformation of old neighborhoods. A questionnaire survey was conducted on the elderly in the Guangzhou Che Bei neighborhood in China, and by applying the rough set theory of the decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory model, we established a preliminary evaluation system, obtained key environmental factors affecting the health of elderly people living in SGHs, and clarified their mutual relationships. Finally, on this basis, we proposed corresponding neighborhood renewal suggestions. The results of this study provide a theoretical basis for future research, and our research model can be applied to similar aging research in the future. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Preference and Consensus Modeling in Group Decision Making under Complex Contexts)
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24 pages, 4220 KiB  
Article
Application of Group Decision Making in Shipping Industry 4.0: Bibliometric Analysis, Trends, and Future Directions
by Yiling Yang, Tiantian Gai, Mingshuo Cao, Zhen Zhang, Hengjie Zhang and Jian Wu
Systems 2023, 11(2), 69; https://doi.org/10.3390/systems11020069 - 29 Jan 2023
Cited by 45 | Viewed by 5001
Abstract
With the development of Internet technologies, the shipping industry has also entered the Industry 4.0 era, which is the era of using information technology to promote industrial change. Group decision making (GDM), as one of the key methods in decision science, can be [...] Read more.
With the development of Internet technologies, the shipping industry has also entered the Industry 4.0 era, which is the era of using information technology to promote industrial change. Group decision making (GDM), as one of the key methods in decision science, can be used to obtain optimal solutions by aggregating the opinions of experts on several alternatives, and it has been applied to many fields to optimize the decision-making process. This paper provides an overview and analysis of the specific applications of GDM methods in Shipping Industry 4.0, and discusses future developments and research directions. First, the existing relevant literature is analyzed using bibliometrics. Then, the general procedure of GDM is investigated: opinion/preference representation, consensus measure, feedback mechanism, and the selection of alternatives. Next, the specific applications of GDM methods in Shipping Industry 4.0 are summarized. Lastly, possible future directions are discussed to advance this area of research. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Preference and Consensus Modeling in Group Decision Making under Complex Contexts)
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